IV. No provision herein in intended to interfere with the requirements of General Orders, Numbers 86, current series, from this office, when regiments have been, or may become, "reduced to one-half of the maximum number prescribed by law."

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

CIRCULAR
WAR DEPT., PROV. March GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 32.
Washington, D. C., June 20, 1863.

As a rule, the Invalid Corps will be subsisted by requisitions for rations in kind, made on the most convenient purchasing or issuing commissary.

When it is impracticable to obtain provisions in this manner, the acting assistant commissary of subsistence for the command will purchase rations in the most convenient market.

Fresh beef will be furnished by the acting assistant commissary of subsistence of the command on the best contract he can make.

Every independent command of the Invalid Corps must have one of its officers to act as acting assistant commissary of subsistence and acting assistant quartermaster, whose duty it shall be, as in other branches of the service, to see that the supplies from the commissary and quartermaster's departments, for the troops, are duly provided.

Requisitions for commissary and quartermaster's property will be approved by the senior officer present for duty at the station with the troops of the Invalid Corps as "commander of the post," orders having been given by those departments to issue on such requisitions.

Requisitions for ordnance will be forwarded to the Provost- Marshal-General, in duplicate, at Washington.

It being highly important to keep the Invalid Corps as a corps of honor and of veterans, it is hereby ordered: That all discharged soldiers of good character, and not liable to draft, whether discharged from the Regular Army or volunteers of this war, or any time previous, may be enlisted in the Invalid Corps, notwithstanding that the disability under which they may have been discharged has disappeared, and notwithstanding that they are over forty-five years of age, provided that they are able to do duty in the Invalid Corps.

Enlisted men transferred to the Invalid Corps will be transferred in the same rank as they held in the active service, and will only be so transferred to serve their unexpired term. They may be discharged and re-enlisted in the Invalid Corps, if they so prefer, for the purpose of settling up their accounts, but their enlistment will then be for three years, unless sooner discharged.

Officers of active regiments appointed to the Invalid Corps will send in to the Adjutant-General their resignations of commissions in their former regiments, to date the day previous to date of acceptance of appointment in the Invalid Corps, that their accounts may be properly settled.

Only infantry is authorized in the Invalid Corps, and such non- commissioned officers only as the law allows to a company of infantry.

Men who enlist in the Invalid Corps will be enlisted as privates, and will be eligible to promotion as commissioned and non- commissioned officers, according to the general regulations of the U. S. Army.